


a bird, a ball, a silver bell

by piggy09



Series: Keyframes [3]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, [covers face with hands] Helena PLEASE that is ENOUGH with the incest overtones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3318509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Okay, I'll give you a name."<br/>"<i>Tell me.</i>"</p><p>(Or: two sisters swap jackets.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a bird, a ball, a silver bell

“ _Sarah_ ,” says Sarah,

 

 

 

 

 

and Helena says it too: _Sarah_ , because to do otherwise would be to lose it forever.

“Right,” says Sarah, “that’s it, that’s the name you wanted. Now untie me, yeah? Someone’s gonna come lookin’ soon.” Sarah’s pulling at her tied wrists, looking back and forth blindly, frantically, and Helena feels warm and loving – like maybe a mother would. She doesn’t know! Sarah. Is very beautiful, Helena thinks. She wonders if she could ever look like that, all full of fear.

“ _Helena_ ,” says Sarah, strained, and Helena was supposed to untie her! So she does. She doesn’t have her knife – sad – but that just means she can slide her finger between the zip ties and _pull_. And that means she can feel Sarah feel Sarah’s heartbeat pounding along, all around Helena’s finger, like it’s her own skin.

_Snap!_

As soon as Sarah’s wrists are free Sarah takes a stumbling step back, pulls the black bag off her head. Helena watches her hair settle around her head, wants to touch it.

“Where is my knife,” she says instead, and Sarah (Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah) just looks at her. She is still breathing very hard. Helena wonders if the marks of Helena’s fingers are going to show up around her throat, growing on her skin the way Sarah is growing under Helena’s skin. It would be good if they matched. It would make sense.

“I don’t know where your bloody _knife_ is,” Sarah snaps, “ _she_ took it,” and she’s pointing at the body of the woman on the ground. Helena should probably wonder if that woman is dead, but mostly she doesn’t care.

“She works for O-li-vi-er,” she says, voice like smooth round pebbles in her mouth. Pauses. “I was not supposed to lose the knife.”

Sarah’s looking at Helena in a way that makes Helena want to squirm, fidget back and forth on her feet. She really was not supposed to lose the knife. But Sarah took it, and here they are.

“You want your knife back,” Sarah says slowly Sarah says, “and Olivier’ll look at his cameras soon.”

Then Sarah starts taking off her jacket; Helena watches her, all that skin. Sarah Sarah has freckles that Helena doesn’t have, on her neck. Helena has had blood there, before, but she grew up in the cold and the dark and so she doesn’t have freckles. Sarah has Sarah has Sarah has freckles, which means. They aren’t the same. Which Helena knew! But. She sucks her lips between her teeth.

“Here,” Sarah

says, holding the jacket to Helena. “We switch. You get your bloody knife back, I get out, you don’t kill me, I pretend this never happened, we’re even. Yeah?”

“Sarah,” says Helena again, and the word tastes like sugar on her tongue. She shouldn’t let Sarah go, Tomas will be angry, but she slides her arms out of her own jacket (some hard candies folded pages from the Bible amen a tube of lipstick sugar packets beef jerky that she had worked so hard to get and she was saving it—) (but it doesn’t matter she can get it back later Sarah) and cradles it like a baby, hands it to Sarah.

“Don’t lose it,” Helena says, “please,” but Sarah’s thrown her jacket, Sarah’s jacket, Sarah’s thrown Sarah’s jacket at Helena and is putting on Helena’s jacket without listening.

“ _Sarah_ ,” Helena says again, “ _please_ ,” and Sarah says in a voice like rubbing sand between your fingers, “It’s the jacket or Olivier, okay?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, just holds up the black bag, says, “Come _on_.”

Helena hates the dark. Helena hates small spaces. She fills up her eyes all the way to the top on the picture of Sarah wearing Helena’s jacket as she struggles into Sarah’s. It smells the way Sarah probably smells, Sarah. Helena imagines the way Helena’s body warmed Helena’s jacket up, imagines it warming Sarah too. Imagines her body wrapped around Sarah’s body, warming it up. Imagines Sarah wearing Helena’s jacket as she runs out of here, far far away – but nowhere Helena can’t find her – and how she’ll think of Helena, when she wears it.

Sarah thinking about Helena. Sarah being warm in Helena’s jacket.

Helena thinks about these things, fills the pockets of her mind with them until they are full. Slowly she walks to where Sarah was standing before, sits down, and quickly Sarah puts Sarah the bag over Helena’s head.

The world goes dark. Helena flicks her tongue out to see if she can taste the breathing of the woman who is Sarah, to see if she can taste the word _Sarah_ where it’s still trapped in the bag. She bobs back and forth, waiting. O-liv-i-er is coming, and Helena is breathing Sarah’s air, and she will remove Olivier’s sin from this earth and Tomas will be pleased and Sarah will be pleased and Sarah will be wearing Helena’s jacket. Helena is wearing Sarah’s jacket, and breathing Sarah’s air, and Sarah, and Sarah Helena is pleased.

She can’t see anything. She hears the door open, and hears the sounds of footsteps running. Then

 

Sarah

 

is Sarah is Sarah is

 

Sarah is

 

Sarah

 

is Sarah is Sarah is Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah

 

is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Your name is a—bird in my hand,  
> a piece of ice on my tongue.  
> The lips’ quick opening.  
> Your name—five letters.  
> A ball caught in flight,  
> a silver bell in my mouth.  
> \--"Poems for Blok," Marina Tsvetaeva
> 
> Please leave kudos + comments if you liked! Thanks for reading!


End file.
